Micromilspec and Black Badger team up again for Broken Hour

Oslo, Norway - Broken Hour looks like something has happened to it, because in The Black Badger’s world, something has. The hour hand is fractured, the GMT hand is damaged, and the date window has been blasted wide open. These details aren’t decoration. They’re the first clues to a story that began before the watch even had a name.

Micromilspec introduces the Micromilspec x Black Badger Broken Hour, a new collaborative GMT watch created with James Thompson, better known as Black Badger. It is delivered with a fully realized 12-page printed comic book that explains how it came to be this way.

For Henrik Rye, Founder and CEO of Micromilspec, the point was to make sure the strange stuff still felt rooted in the brand. “Broken Hour isn’t just a graphic on a GMT watch,” he says. “Every little detail belongs to the same story.” Underneath all of that, he adds, it remains “a proper Micromilspec GMT.”

The collaboration was built from the world outward. Before Broken Hour had its final shape, The Black Badger already had a universe around him, one full of bad decisions, awkward escapes, and trouble with authority. In this universe, time is not just something you measure. It can be stolen, corrupted, controlled, and, eventually, broken. That gave the team a different way into the design. Broken Hour could still be a capable GMT watch, but it also had to feel like evidence from the story: something repaired, repurposed, and still ticking after the original plan had gone badly wrong.

“From the start, we approached Broken Hour almost like creating a video game,” says James Thompson. “We had built the world first, then asked: what would these characters actually wear? It didn’t feel that revolutionary while we were talking about it, but it’s what allowed the whole project to properly take shape.”

Project Sabotage gave the first physical glimpse of that world. Its orange accents and slightly unhinged Black Badger logic now carry into Broken Hour through the orange chapter ring, orange rubber strap, white dial, and the sense that things have gone wrong in exactly the right way.

The watch is built on the same platform as Micromilspec’s Dualtimer. Underneath all the chaos, it is powered by the Sellita SW330-2 automatic movement, offering hours, minutes, seconds, date, and a GMT hand for tracking a second time zone. The QuadGrip dive bezel adds another functional layer, while the 42mm microblasted stainless steel case, screw-down crown, sapphire crystal, and 20 ATM water resistance keep it aligned with Micromilspec’s professional watchmaking roots. The orange rubber strap comes as standard, with a matching microblasted stainless steel bracelet also available.

The broken hour hand, damaged GMT hand, blasted date window, and Samurai Black Badger caseback are not small visual jokes. They are physical mementos of The Black Badger’s haphazard journey through the space/time continuum. Some details are there for collectors to find. Others are probably there because Micromilspec and Black Badger enjoyed themselves a little too much.

Each Micromilspec x Black Badger Broken Hour will be delivered with a full 12-page printed comic book telling the next chapter of The Time Wars. The comic has been treated as part of the object rather than a bonus insert. Norwegian comic artist Henri illustrated it as a full printed chapter, with story by Micromilspec and character creation by James Thompson. It gives Broken Hour its origin story, then lets the reader decide how reliable The Black Badger’s version of events really is.

“People are collecting the story as much as the actual product itself,” says Thompson. “That’s been a really fun part of this project, because the watch isn’t just sitting next to the comic. It belongs inside that world.”

The Micromilspec x Black Badger Broken Hour will be available through a one-time 24-hour sales window, opening on May 29, 18:00 CET and closing on May 30, 18:00 CET at https://www.micromilspec.com/products/black-badger-broken-hour. Readers can sign up now on the product page to be notified when the sales window opens. All orders placed during the sales window will be honored. Once it closes, Broken Hour will never be offered or produced again.